I live in Australia where if you study a particular degree, all (or the vast majority) of your subjects are directly related to that field.
I may be wrong but movies tend to give me the impression that at American universities/colleges, all students study a wide array of subjects, attend random lectures, and students room with people studying different things.
It also appears to be a lot about the lifestyle and not just get in, do your study, get your degree.
Are American studies specialised or more general?
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>Are American studies specialised or more general?
Depends on the college, the field of study, and to some extent, the person.
A typical university, for most degrees, will have significant General Education requirements. In your first year, you do some introductory field-specific classes, field-specific prerequisites (e.g., math classes if you’re a chemist), and a number of GenEd classes. Often GenEd and prereqs bleed into year two, but get less common. In years 3 and 4 it’s typically only field-specific classes and advanced related courses (e.g., more advanced math for a physicist).
Depending on the degree program, though, you often have a fair amount of “free space” to work with in the later years. You could do more classes within your field of study, but you could also branch out and do related things that are interesting to you. They could be just interesting or they could be both interesting and relevant. For example, maybe you’re a CS major, but you dedicate all your free time to art and sociology so that you have a particular perspective on UX.
At the far end of this spectrum, there is a liberal arts degree. That is really about studying a broad array of things and just being an educated person in general. There are also schools where you more or less invent your own degree program. You may think it’s weird, but historically, higher education is more aligned with liberal arts (general education) than with field-specific training. (By “historically”, I mean “before the US existed to be compared with”.)
>It also appears to be a lot about the lifestyle and not just get in, do your study, get your degree.
This kind of combines two things. There is the idea of “don’t just get in and do your study”. There’s a lot of disagreement about that. Many people think of and want college to be a training school for some disciplines, and they often approach it as “get in and get done”. Other people don’t, and favor the more traditional approach of using higher education as a way of being a more generally educated and well-rounded person. Separately, there is the non-academic “lifestyle”. Historically, college was also about the non-academic (and rather elite) lifestyle — but yeah, the “college lifestyle” is a big thing in the US.
>students room with people studying different things
Wait, you group students in dorms by their field of study?
Not really answering the question but thought I’d comment that what you’re saying about degrees in Australia is not entirely true. It depends what degree you study and what uni. Generalist degrees such as Arts, Commerce, Science will typically have 6-8 elective slots outside of your degree core and major requirements (at least that has been my experience in NSW). It is true, however, that we do not have formal GenEd requirements like the US meaning if you study Biology you could simply fill these elective slots with more Biology units.
It depends. I majored in physics at a top 5 research university. Aside from physics, math, and chemistry, I also took French, history, philosophy, and rhetoric. Some of this, like the rhetoric and foreign language, was required for the physics degree. At this uni, physics was in the “College of Letters and Science”, which had extensive non-major breadth requirements.
Later I transferred to a Engineering & Computer Science program, which was in the College of Engineering. I had already met their breadth requirements ( except for economics) but still took additional classes in philosophy and analysis (math).
This was an unusually broad program for a technically oriented degree – I went well beyond the required courses. But what’s the point of going to a University if you don’t take advantage of its universal nature?
It depends. I majored in physics at a top 5 research university. Aside from physics, math, and chemistry, I also took French, history, philosophy, and rhetoric. Some of this, like the rhetoric and foreign language, was required for the physics degree. At this uni, physics was in the “College of Letters and Science”, which had extensive non-major breadth requirements.
Later I transferred to a Engineering & Computer Science program, which was in the College of Engineering. I had already met their breadth requirements ( except for economics) but still took additional classes in philosophy and analysis (math).
This was an unusually broad program for a technically oriented degree – I went well beyond the required courses. But what’s the point of going to a University if you don’t take advantage of its universal nature?
22NB from Arizona. I’m currently enrolled into my community college engineering program. In order to meet the requirements for that degree, I need to take several (only 2 thank GOD) ENG classes, humanities, social behaviors, and other categories along with an extensive list of math classes. To fulfill these categories, you can pick classes that meet them that relate to your degree, or something completely different that still meets the requirements. Now I have to take chemistry, physics, and calculus for my specific degree, however I still need to meet the “core” requirement for ANY degree. Now take that with a grain of salt, that is my explanation of my experience and what I have been told.
It depends. I majored in physics at a top 5 research university. Aside from physics, math, and chemistry, I also took French, history, philosophy, and rhetoric. Some of this, like the rhetoric and foreign language, was required for the physics degree. At this uni, physics was in the “College of Letters and Science”, which had extensive non-major breadth requirements.
Later I transferred to a Engineering & Computer Science program, which was in the College of Engineering. I had already met their breadth requirements ( except for economics) but still took additional classes in philosophy and analysis (math).
This was an unusually broad program for a technically oriented degree – I went well beyond the required courses. But what’s the point of going to a University if you don’t take advantage of its universal nature?
American undergraduate programs are designed to produce generalists.
It varies, but a more or less standard bachelors degree might require 120 credits or around 40 courses. Of those, normally only about 10 will be in your major department — if you’re getting a political science degree, around 10 polisci courses; if you’re getting a chem degree around 10 chem courses. So about 3/4 of your courses will be outside your major department.
That doesn’t mean they’ll all be outside your major. Many majors require additional courses outside their own department, like chem majors taking math and physics and (less commonly) polisci majors taking econ or history.
Some of the other 30 courses get taken up with general ed requirements. An American university is usually going to insist that you take a foreign language (or demonstrate ability with one), that you take some science courses even if you’re not in a science major, that you take some humanities courses even if you’re a physics major, etc.
Some of the others are electives. Between courses that satisfy multiple requirements, having room for electives, and just taking a heavy load sometimes, a fair-sized minority of undergrads get two majors, usually in related areas like polisci and econ.
This is absolutely on purpose and is just a different vision of what undergrad education is about. In more employment terms, American schools are trying to produce generalized information processors that can be slotted into many entry-level white-collar jobs. We have lots of jobs that require a degree but where there aren’t really reputable schools offering majors. I’m sure there’s somewhere offering a BA in human resources or government compliance, but these aren’t really things at places like flagship state universities.
American undergraduate programs are designed to produce generalists.
It varies, but a more or less standard bachelors degree might require 120 credits or around 40 courses. Of those, normally only about 10 will be in your major department — if you’re getting a political science degree, around 10 polisci courses; if you’re getting a chem degree around 10 chem courses. So about 3/4 of your courses will be outside your major department.
That doesn’t mean they’ll all be outside your major. Many majors require additional courses outside their own department, like chem majors taking math and physics and (less commonly) polisci majors taking econ or history.
Some of the other 30 courses get taken up with general ed requirements. An American university is usually going to insist that you take a foreign language (or demonstrate ability with one), that you take some science courses even if you’re not in a science major, that you take some humanities courses even if you’re a physics major, etc.
Some of the others are electives. Between courses that satisfy multiple requirements, having room for electives, and just taking a heavy load sometimes, a fair-sized minority of undergrads get two majors, usually in related areas like polisci and econ.
This is absolutely on purpose and is just a different vision of what undergrad education is about. In more employment terms, American schools are trying to produce generalized information processors that can be slotted into many entry-level white-collar jobs. We have lots of jobs that require a degree but where there aren’t really reputable schools offering majors. I’m sure there’s somewhere offering a BA in human resources or government compliance, but these aren’t really things at places like flagship state universities.
I’m in Australia, when I got my degree (last year) about 1/3 of the units were not directly related to my major. I think most universities are like that.
American undergraduate programs are designed to produce generalists.
It varies, but a more or less standard bachelors degree might require 120 credits or around 40 courses. Of those, normally only about 10 will be in your major department — if you’re getting a political science degree, around 10 polisci courses; if you’re getting a chem degree around 10 chem courses. So about 3/4 of your courses will be outside your major department.
That doesn’t mean they’ll all be outside your major. Many majors require additional courses outside their own department, like chem majors taking math and physics and (less commonly) polisci majors taking econ or history.
Some of the other 30 courses get taken up with general ed requirements. An American university is usually going to insist that you take a foreign language (or demonstrate ability with one), that you take some science courses even if you’re not in a science major, that you take some humanities courses even if you’re a physics major, etc.
Some of the others are electives. Between courses that satisfy multiple requirements, having room for electives, and just taking a heavy load sometimes, a fair-sized minority of undergrads get two majors, usually in related areas like polisci and econ.
This is absolutely on purpose and is just a different vision of what undergrad education is about. In more employment terms, American schools are trying to produce generalized information processors that can be slotted into many entry-level white-collar jobs. We have lots of jobs that require a degree but where there aren’t really reputable schools offering majors. I’m sure there’s somewhere offering a BA in human resources or government compliance, but these aren’t really things at places like flagship state universities.
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